Hire Friday Job Tips

It’s Hire Friday in the Twitterverse, and in that spirit, we’ve got two sets of jobs tips for you. First, Martin Zwilling over at Startup Professionals has some job tips for people looking to find their first job for a startup company:

The whole comprehensive list is here, but lets start with some of the basic ones:

Create and control your Internet image. Whether it’s LinkedIn, YouTube, or Facebook, you need an online presence. No online presence may brand you as “old school,” and not startup material. Carefully monitor the “personal brand” you’re building on the Internet to keep it positive.

Actively work the network. Summer is one of the best times of the year to make new connections and find new startups, with outdoor activities and sports. Contrary to popular belief, business networking is not all done at investor receptions and conferences.

Update your career “tool kit.” Most job seekers still use only their resume as the cornerstone of their search. But there are many other items you should have in your “career tool kit” – good online profiles, accomplishment stories, positioning statement, contact list, professional references, letters of recommendation, and more.

All pretty standard tips. But here is one I never thought of:

Tune your business fashion sense. Fashion trends in startups are more relaxed and modern than you may see in large enterprises. It may be time to update your apparel to prevent the impression that you are stuck in the past and may have a difficult time adjusting to the startup world. It also will boost your own confidence level as well.

Interesting thought–since impressions are so important, and clothes, after all, “make a man.” Perhaps an closet upgrade isn’t a bad idea.

But for the seasoned startup veteran, those tips don’t really apply. After all, if you’ve worked in a startup, you’ve already got the wardrobe down. Ben Cathers, in a guest post on the Personal Branding Blog, has some really great tips for people who are trying to deal with a specific issue–you’re good at too many things. Cathers describes this sceanrio:

On my personal blog I wrote an article about how my entrepreneur friend has struggled in the job search. She wore a lot of hats at her old company and her resume demonstrated that. Unfortunately, companies aren’t looking to hire an “entrepreneur.” They are looking to hire a “sales manager,” “business development manager,” “marketing manager,” and so forth.

So he has tips on how to refine yourself to fit in the job market, starting with the most obvious one:

Pick a desired skillset and stick with it.

You’re an entrepreneur. You’ve been involved with 15 to 20 different projects at your company. Now, it’s time to pick the task you enjoyed the most and begin making a career out of it.

Think about what you excelled in at your company. Think back to your success at the organization – where did you have the biggest impact? And most importantly – what did you enjoy doing? You’re an entrepreneur – you have fun in business. If you’re going to be switching away from being your own boss to having your own boss – make sure you choose a job function you enjoy.

But here’s a great idea for someone looking to focus themselves:

Begin a blog.

You’re an entrepreneur! You enjoy building things. Here’s another project to start: a blog on the certain skillset you choose. For this example, if you are going down the route as a “sales professional,” it’s time to start writing a blog about running sales in a startup. Talk about the different challenges you faced. Talk about the experiences of running a startup’s sale organization.

Your blog will serve as the first way you rebrand yourself from “entrepreneurial superstar” to “entrepreneurial sales superstar”. By writing blog articles that demonstrate your sales acumen, you will begin to shed the image that you are an “entrepreneur who wears many hats” and begin to develop the image that you are “an entrepreneur, who is used to wearing many hats, who succeeds at sales.”

Even if no one other than your potential employer reads it, it still shows that you know what you’re doing, and may even be just the right advantage you need for your resume to stand out.